Tag: subway

Is that 17 Sacagawea’s in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

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Happy fare hike Monday.  Actually, the fares jumped over the weekend, but most of us wouldn’t have noticed until today.

So now that we have a $2.25 fare, your pants just got heavier.  How so?  Well, if you buy a single ride with a $5 bill, you’re going to get back two dollar coins plus 3 quarters.  Awesome.

God help you if you paid for it with a $20.  That’s 17 dollar coins plus 3 quarters.

$20 bill goes in, 20 coins come out.

Granted, even a few days ago, it still would have been 18 dollar coins…but still.  It’s pretty insane.

The bigger problem is going to be the little old ladies that have to break out their coin purse full of nickels to get up to the 25 cents.  You know there ain’t no damn way grandma is going to break another dollar if she doesn’t have to.

At least the machines don’t take pennies!

Sailors Travel in a Sea of Women

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Fleet week sailors with girls in the village.
Fleet week sailors with girls in the village.

This past weekend is the only time I ever actually consider joining the Navy.  Everywhere you go on the subway all weekend long, it is nonstop sailors with hot women on their arms.

Getting done up in those dress whites is like some sort of magical hot-girl catnip or something.  They have to fight them off with a stick.

The best part is when you see them riding around in neighborhoods no where near the tourist areas.  Seeing them in groups down in the Village or Time Square is one thing.   Seeing them riding around the East 90’s is another story.

Without fail, every year I see a lone sailor riding back down to the ship from waaaaay uptown.  It’s the arm forces walk of shame, yet there’s nothing to be ashamed of.

I’ve never done anything close to any kind of military service.  I’m curious about what it is like on board those ships the day they find out they’ve been selected to come to NYC for Fleet Week.  It must be like Christmas for the single, 18-30 year old men on board.

Keep up the good work boys (and girls).

Photo credit.

Swine Flu Snot on the Subway

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Am I the only one that feels hyper of every cough, sneeze, or sniffle around them these days?

I know I have ranted in the past about germs on the subway, but this is taking it to another level.

Personally, I think the whole swine flu insanity is a lot of hype.  Yes, those people died, and that is sad.  The fact still remains that good old fashioned regular flu kills far more people both in raw numbers and percentage.  Almost every case of swine flu in NYC has been reported as mild.

However, even being a super intelligent person such as myself, I have found myself being extra aware of the “germs” around me on the subway.  I know it is crazy.  As I’m standing there thinking it, I’m saying to myself, “You’re being a f*&%ing idiot.”

What’s even crazier is seeing how other people are reacting.  Now when someone lets out a big sneeze, people literally get up and walk away.  They move to another part of the car or go stand on the other end of the platform.

It’s getting pretty crazy.

I Can See Your Boob

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The weather is getting warmer, that’s for sure.  Today wasn’t especially warm, but for some ladies the summer clothes are out and they’re not going back till the fall.

With that comes the lowcut tops, short shorts, and micro skirts. This is truly one of New York’s greatest treasures, IMHO.

Today, there was a young lady sitting down in front of me.  I was holding on to the bar above where she was sitting.   She was wearing a sundress type thing with little straps.  I guess the dress was a little big on her or something because one strap kept falling off her shoulder.

I looked down, and oops…there’s your boob.  Nice to meet you.

Unfortunately, she was not terribly attractive.  Wasn’t quite to the point of being offensive, but it did give me pause.  So I turned away.

It’s like forcing yourself to not look at a car wreck.

Anyway, I got a seat at the next stop more or less across from her…a slight angle. I thought everything would be safe now because I was now at her eye level instead of looking down over her.  How wrong I was.

She was reading people magazine or something and was totally focused.  Whoops, there goes that strap again.   Only this time, it really went.  There’s no way that people sitting next to me couldn’t see her entire boob hanging out.

It was easily the entire length of one stop to another before she picked up the strap.  But she did it totally casual without even taking her eyes off the magazine.  I don’t think she “felt the breeze” at all.

I kept waiting for another woman on the train to say something to her.  There’s no way in hell a guy is going to say anything.  For one, it is against our DNA to do so, and secondly that is a line we never cross.

I just assumed it was part of the “girl code” to tell each other when your boob is hanging out, regardless of being strangers.  Right?

Predicting the Heat’s-A-Coming

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I’m to lazy to go and look up the temperatures from last May, but I feel like we’re getting off easy this year temperature wise. I have a feeling these relatively mild weeks are going to quickly come back and bite us in the ass.

I’m predicting that we get our first sustained heat not this week but next week.  This week will be the last week of the nice mild weather.   I’m just going on a hunch that next week is going to be the official beginning of the balls hot weather.

Of course, I have absolutely no scientific data to back that up.  It’s just a feeling.

As with everything on the subway, I get really jumpy when things go too well for too long.

Being able to leave home without a jacket and not sweat my ass off on the platform is delightful.  But I’m used to only being able to do that for a few days a year.

Now, remember SUBWAYblogger’s three day theory.  It takes a full three days for the temperature underground to totally catch up to the outside temp.  One day of 98 degree weather won’t do anything down below.  We need three back to back days in the mid eighties for it to become totally unbearable underground.

I’m really not looking forward to the heat in the subway this year, not that I would any year.  This year particularly though.  There’s a really distinct smell of urine ripening at my stop that just gets worse by the day.  I can only imagine what the heat is going to bring.

There’s clearly some homeless guy that keeps making a daily deposit there because there’s no way that one quick piss could be persistent this long.  That ammonia smell is getting pretty ridiculous.  It’s almost to the point where you can taste it.  I’m considering walking all the way to the other end of the platform from now on.

Anyway, mark my words.  Heat’s a comin’.

Knitting “Terrorist” on the Subway

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On any given day, at any given time, you can see shocking things that would make your eyes burn and your head shake.

This morning was no different. I boarded the R train that goes from my house in Midtown to my job in Soho. It is a fairly quick trip, but even on the quickest of trips, you can catch a glimpse of a myriad of interesting things.

Today was probably the most shocking of all.

Across from me was a black man about my age. He was all ghettoed out, wearing baggy pants, a puffy ski parka, a Sean John sweater and a ski head pulled menacingly down on his eyes. He had chains around his neck and bright bling on his fingers and in his ears. He had a big bag on his lap and was shaking his head in time to the gangsta rap he was listening to that filtered into the rest of the car in staticked beeps.

He reached into his messenger bag and pulls out…. what I can’t quite see it…I squint my eyes to discern…it’s long and pointed…is it a knife?…is it a needle….

No, it’s a crocheting needle. He promptly pulls out a half-made green sock and continues on looping and connecting, his hands working wildly. There he sat from 42nd St., to Prince, pulling bright green wool from it’s skein and jabbing his number 7 crochet tool in and out, crocheting his little heart out.

Another Nail in the Fare Hike Coffin

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Aaaand we inch ever closer to the $2.50 single ride and the $103 monthly unlimited. The final vote is Wednesday.

I don’t claim to be that good at math, but eventually the unlimited card is just not worth it.  I mean, the average commuter is going to take the train twice a day, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month.  That’s 40 total rides.  At $2.50 a ride, that’s $100.

Eventually, I think I’m just going to buy a $100 regular card and get my extra 6 free rides ($15).  There’s rarely a month that goes by where I take 6 rides on the weekend.  When I head out on the weekend, I’m usually cabbing it up.

Person Killed by Subway Train at 116th Street

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Around 7:30am, a report of a person struck by a train went out across police radios.

The incident occurred around 116th Street & Broadway on the Uptown 1 line.  The thing we find odd is the report that the person was dead on arrival between 116th and 125th.  That makes it sound like the person may have been in the tunnel when they were hit.  That’s just an assumption.

Typically, people that jump or fall off the platform die right there.  There’s no report of the bodies being found “between” stops.

However, I suppose it is possible that he person was hit and dragged as the train pulled out of the station.

The incident tied up trains for hours right in the heart of rush hour.  Beyond that, not too many details are available.  That makes me think that it was probably a homeless person living in the tunnels that got hit.

Drunk Man Gets Hit by Train and Wins $2.3 Million

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Dustin Dibble, 25, of Brooklyn fell onto the subway tracks back in April of 2006.  A train came and ran over his leg.  Unfortunately, the leg had to be amputated at the calf.

Dibble was drunk at the time and reportedly had a BAC of .18.

The courts just awarded him $2.3 million!

They found that the train operator saw him in time to stop, but did not.  Dibble’s lawyers allege that the train operator saw Dibble and had 180 feet of room to stop, but did not.

The train operator’s lawyer says the driver thought Dibble was simply trash on the tracks.

Dibble admits being intoxicated and does not even remember the incident.

So how is it that this is the fault of the MTA? This guy was drunk, fell onto the tracks, and was hit by a train.  It is absolutely an unfortunate situation.  Obviously, Dibble will never be the same again, but how is that the fault of the train?

It’s not like the driver actually saw a person on the tracks and said to hell with it…hit him.  It’s extremely traumatic for the person driving the train when they hit someone.  Actually, the MTA requires crews associated with this kind of incident to undergo psychological counseling.

It just boggles the mind.